Sandals Barbados

Easy 15 mintue ride to resort from airport, met by our butler who escorted us to our gorgeous room, 3 full double glass doors, facing the ocean, opening to a large spacious front balcony - it was spectacular, curtains available for privacy or to get a break from the sun. The housekeeping team were top notch, met us on day one and remembered our names, so Cheryl, a shout out to you and your welcoming vibe. Loved the turn down service and towel refresh. Grounds crew, this was a tropical paradise like none other, a diligent team working hard to make this special, and boy was it beautiful, please acknowledge the efforts of this entire crew. Had a tiny issue, quickly adress by the Gina team, had the pleasure of working with Melissa. She is a professional in hospitality, and a darn nice lady to talk with. Its folks like her that made our experience in Barbados, our best vacation EVER! The food was full of flavor, and carefully presented with great care. If you have any allergies or dietary concerns, this dining team will ask you every time of any allergies. They take food seriously, a great relief for those that may have concerns if this is the right place for them to dine. It IS! Safety - we felt comfortable taking several walks in the neighborhood around Sandals, me the nicest couple walking on the street from the UK, repeat visitors to the island, they gave us tips and short cuts to the beach. Valuable as first time vistors. Entertainment was pretty okay, St. Lucia had more of the typical fire show with dancers, super fun. They had singers, a piano sing a long (it was fun), and a silent disco that was beyond fun! If you have never pariticpated in a silent disco, go, ask the staff what to do, and enjoy the good time. Extra special to our trip was the end of Crop over - a street party thru the entire resort, steel band, dj's, drinks, parade and ending in a concert with more drinks and a lovely meal. To the team that catered the event, excellent presentation of food, and it was delicious. Butler team - three gals that seemed like sisters, we asked, and they provided a variety of unique to Barbados beach treats. Do ask for Macaroni Pie, its unique and flavorful. They all made sure we had a great time, we wanted for nothing, and enjoyed their friendly attitude. Island Insiders - booked a dive trip to see ship wreck and sea turtles, our guide was terrific, young and in command of the many people that booked his boat tour, he made everyone feel safe, took uneasy swimmers under his care and accomodated them. We went to the friday night fish fry in town and booked transport from Sandals. Fun time, but we could have been in and out in one hour. Transportation was 6pm back at 9pm. A little long for us. The locals are welcoming and fine when you say no thanks. Diedra is in charge of the on site booking of tours - you will be handled by a pro, she listens and is clear on what you want to explore. Bartenders - Zebe, Royal swim up bar, engaging young man who immediately made you feel welcome, made a mean drink and really enjoyed what he was doing. Treated to a couple massage- relaxing, rejuivinating, and performed by professionals that made everything super special. I wrote all my thank yous on the Gina site, while on vacation, and unfortunately can not bring up all the names of staff now that I am off site. We usually do not vacation in the same spot twice, but Barbados, this is a repeat resort for us. The DJ team, really added to any event - great selection of tunes to listen to beach side. the Hobbie cat ride was fun, had a cool young man captained our vessel, included at Sandals, do it its fun! Friendly accomodating staff, the locals made us feel at ease, the resort provided everything needed for a 5 star vacation. Thank you Lastly, to the lady at the donut shop, thank you for not judging us for stopping by every single day of our vacation. We missed her on her off day, and she was delighted when she returned the next day, and we acknowledged missing her. Sweet treat from a sweet lady.

Although we were stopping on the Royal Barbados side we thought we would submit a whistle stop review covering our experience with the Barbados side of the resort. We have already submitted a thorough review of the Royal and has already been published 15th August 2026. Although they are registered as two separate hotels, you can’t tell. There isn’t any physical border or boundary and is like a huge mega resort. Apart from your assigned accommodation you’re allowed to use the facilities of each hotel. This was one of the main reasons we booked this holiday. This was our 5th Sandals (previously been to St Lucia La Toc, Grenada, Curacao and St Vincent) and has become our favourite. The bars/watering holes and eateries are in abundance. It was good to be reunited with a pub as the previous 2 Sandals didn’t have one (Curacao and St Vincent). They had the same drinks as per St Lucia and Grenada i.e. bottles of Stella, bottles of Strongbow cider and cans of Guinness (plenty of Irish car bombs went down the hatch). The pub was quite a size and featured a snooker table and a pool table. We tried the English Sunday dinner and give it 10/10, the Yorkshire puddings were spot on and were crispy, light and fluffy, the gravy was authentic too. We just need to say a massive thanks to David who was one of the food and beverage managers. We got talking to him one afternoon outside the pub and he was intrigued why we were putting cassis in our cider. We told him that we love cider and black (black is short for black current cordial/squash) and because they don’t have any blackcurrant cordial/squash available it’s the next best thing. After returning to the pub on the evening the bartender presented a carton of Ribena for us. He said David had managed to get his hands on a carton so we could have our pint of cider and black. We were absolutely overjoyed with this lovely gesture. This happened on our last night, and David wasn’t there on the evening so we couldn’t thank him in person. We told the bar tender to thank him, and we also said we would thank him in our review and on GINA– thanks again David xx The restaurants on the Barbados side were all fantastic and all complimented by a hard-working dedicated crew. Not sure if it’s just this resort or if it’s just recently been introduced but Sandals seem to have changed the a la carte reservation system and applied limits to the number of visits allowed (were no limits last year). They said this has been changed to allow other guests a chance of visiting the restaurants that require reservations. You are therefore only allowed 1 visit per a la carte restaurant per week (so 4 a week as there are 4 restaurants that require reservations). On the first week we did all 4 but on the second week we only did 2 (didn’t want a repeat visit to Fusion or the French). We asked if we could do the two Butches again in lieu of not wanting to visit the Fusion/French but weren’t allowed. We went to Fusion one night and they were serving bottles of Japanese Kirin beer. We looked at Dino’s pizza menu prior to arrival, and the menu was different to the other Sandals ones, most of the choices we weren’t keen on. When we ordered at Dino’s we seen that they have the other pizzas choices on the order form, the one we loved from the previous Sandals i.e. the meat lovers. We normally got a pizza about 5ish (closed at 6pm) and we had to wait about 15-20 minutes which wasn’t long. Each pizza was so tasty and perfectly crafted. One thing we noticed was the dress code in the a la cartes weren’t being adhered to, and plenty of male guests wearing shorts. Sandals might as well ditch the trouser dress code. Building work is ongoing on blocks 17 and 18 which did impact our stay by removing access to certain elements of 3 restaurants. Our review on the Royal side does into more detail but the work isn’t aesthetically pleasing to the eye, is very noisy and removed the element of having breakfast at the French Restaurant (Royal side) as it was closed due to the noisy construction work (we weren’t informed of this and was showing as being open on the app), Spices was closed completely (Barbados side) and although they said the French breakfast menu was being put on alternatively in Scrimshaws (Barbados side) we turned up to Scrimshaws and it was closed (even though we were told it would be open) also due to the work that was going on in Spices. Pools/beach - there are an excellent selection of pools at this resort catering for everyone’s needs. The direction of the sun rose from where the airport is and went directly over so that it set just where Butches on the Barbados side is. As with the other Sandals we have visited the towel cabinets are plentiful, all fully stocked and replenished by the attentive pool lads. All the pools were open during our visit. It does take the weight off when you don’t need to get up the crack of dawn to reserve a sunbed. The sand was just as good as we remembered it when we last visited Barbados in 2019, white, fluffy and soft. You literally have to walk down to the shoreline to see any of the seaweed even then it’s just a small amount, there was no seaweed on the main beach itself. There was plenty of sunbeds on the beaches too. They didn’t have the yellow floating rings like they had in Curacao or St Vincent, so we missed them. We also loved the tubing that they did in St Vincent but didn’t do it here. The Groundsmen keep both sites beautifully maintained. The hygiene attendants /clean team also did a cracking job with keeping all the areas such as bins, floors and toilets all nip and clean. Although it features on the Royal side it’s just to make guests of the Barbados side aware that there is a daily hotdog stall outside lovers’ lane 12pm to 2pm. Lovers Lane also features the following international beers - Barbados brew house mahogany bay stout, Brew house Round rock IPA, Belgium Duvel, Canada Molson Canadian pale lager, Germany Becks, Paulaner Hefe Weiss, Italy Peroni, Netherlands Grolsch, USA – Anchor Steam, Blue Moon, Sam Adams Boston Lager, Shiner Rock, Sierra Nevada, Jamaica Red Stripe and Mexico Pacifico. Please note that the international drinks in stock will be presented on the bowling alley bar, if one of the beers on the list isn’t on the bar then it isn’t available. We loved our stay and would return in a heart beat, thanks to all the staff who worked on the Barbados side

My new husband and I got married on the resort last week and spent 10 days at the resort. I can't say enough amazing things about this resort. From the time we arrived to the time we left our experience was completely stress free, amazing down time, most friendly staff and overall the best vacation we have ever had. The wedding planners were so professional along with photographer, video and staff top notch and our pictures were gorgeous. You have access to both resorts, Sandals Barbados and Royal Barbados so you will never run out of things to do, do everything or nothing and still have the best time! The room was not like a hotel room but a bedroom away from home, just gorgeous and so kept up. Every area of the room including the bathroom were perfect. Highly recommend the Candlelight dinner, the Red Lane Spa massages, and they did my make up and hair. Amazing experience. Very clean all over the resort including the room.

We wanted to write a review to commend the manager, and his team, at Butch’s Chophouse. It was so very well managed and a true 5-star experience: from the initial greeting; service; ambience and presentation/quality of the food right through to the signature cocktail. This doesn’t just happen by chance and to our family, our experience at your restaurant stood out for all the right reasons. Hardly a surprise therefore that it is difficult to secure a reservation. Visitors please make sure that you book in early: trust us, you won’t be disappointed. Staff: keep doing what you’re doing: it really is top-notch. Thank you.

We visited Sandals Royal Barbados for our honeymoon for 2 weeks and it was the most incredible experience! Upon arrival, we were greeted by people who took our suitcases from us to our rooms and told we had been given a complimentary upgrade to a Rondoval Suite for our honeymoon. The room was stunning, such a personal, intimate space for us and we had visits from housekeeping around 3 times each day. They turned down the bed every night for us and kept our minibar well stocked. The staff were so extremely friendly across the whole site on the royal side and Barbados side. From the bar staff, to restaurant staff, entertainment team and housekeeping! The food was outstanding, so many options to choose from and the cafes were also so delicious. We loved that there were also so many options of where to sunbathe because obviously you have access to both hotels so felt like so many different choices. We loved the infinity pool most of all and there was one particular man (sadly don’t know his name) but he was incredible with looking after the pool and keeping the area around it in great condition. The piano bar was a firm favourite for us! Dale was very experienced and this was very evidence because every night would be different songs based on the crowd he had. We also loved the white party which had a silent disco every Wednesday; such a fun time! The weather was so nice every day, there was a few rainy spells but literally for about 10 minutes and then the sun came back out again. We were very grateful for the helpful staff at the Island Routes desk as she helped us book excursions! We visited Harrison’s cave which was so much fun; and also did an island keep safari and the tour guide was very knowledgeable! We also felt so lucky to see the monkeys on the resort, and again, the staff knew the exact time and location we’d be able to see them and were so lovely! The beachfront was also such a lovely place too. We kept hearing lots of people saying about the seaweed and yes there was a build up every now and then but the staff were on top of removing this as often as they could! It was the most wonderful holiday we have ever had and would 100% recommend this resort! We’d love to visit again!